Sawatch

Snowpack

I mostly traveled on east-northeast-facing slopes at the upper end of the below-treeline elevation band and near treeline. The 1 cm thick, faceting crust, buried 25 cm deep, kept me from completely sinking to the ground. As others have noted, the weakest snow is directly above the crust. It's stiff competition for the weakest snow though with the basal layer of 1 to 2 mm fist-hard facets below the crust. These basal facets are starting to show striations as they metamorphose to depth hoar. I suspect the facets above the crust were responsible for the small collapses. On due north-facing slopes no crust was present and the entire snowpack is fist hard and unsupportable to skis in sheltered areas.